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NCR Today

Miracle-challenged, I guess you could call me. A devout nonbeliever in the tooth fairy, winning the lottery, the accuracy of ouija boards, A Course in Miracles, Medjugorge, personally I have never beheld a vision, seen a statue weep, been dealt a royal flush in poker, witnessed a UFO or even a spoon-bending. As a Catholic kid I heard, and didn't buy, the Fatima tales that included the sun spinning in the sky overhead like the ultimate Texas baton twirl. To me, "miracles" seem to say more about human sociology than about theology.

Ignoring the laughable astronomical misunderstanding, the Fatima story, for example, may validate your faith ticket with a hefty punch, but at heart shows the spirituality of a bully or terrorist. The Source of Life and the Universe spun the sun like a top to confound some two-bit Portuguese communists but refuses to nudge nature's laws a millimeter when an innocent child is slain by random shrapnel in one of the world's many wars or beaten to a raw bloody death by Rwandan thugs? Given a choice, in which scenario would you root for some divine breaking of the laws of physics? And what do such attributed behaviors say about God?

An Oblate priest who has long protested against America’s nuclear weapons arsenal was found guilty Dec. 21 of criminal mischief and trespassing on government property at the site of a nuclear missile silo in northern Colorado.

Father Carl Kabat, 76, was sentenced by Weld County Court Judge Dana Nichols to time served — 137 days — after his Aug. 6 arrest at the silo near New Raymer, Colo.

In Tamil Nadu, southeast India, the tsunami tragedy of 2004 is still weighing heavily on widows, orphans and smallscale fisherfolk, according to this report from the Italian mission news agency, AsiaNews.it.

Fr P. A. Santhanam, a Jesuit priest and lawyer, was among the first responders to the coastal district of Kanyakumari district in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. He didn't bring aid though; he brought a team of legal aid lawyers, because he knew that the survivors would need legal representation just as keenly as they needed food and shelter.

Five years on, the aid groups have pretty much packed up and left. Santhanam's legal team, though is still on the job, helping fisherfolk fight for housing and fishing rights and against political forces that would either forget them or take advantage of their tragedy.

One of the signal differences between the current administration and its predecessor is the manner in which it handles events like the attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate a bomb on his plane as it landed in Detroit. The appropriate administration officials have spoken about how something like this can happen despite the many precautions undertaken at airports worldwide. Security at the airports is increased in case this one incident is not one incident but the first in a series. The President did not rush into a press briefing in the middle of his vacation.

Sr. Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, has told Catholic News Service that the New York Times got the story wrong when it reported Dec. 26 that her group wasn't in step with the U.S. bishops on the health reform bills now pending in Congress.

Keehan told CNS that her association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are working together to achieve health reform legislation that does not expand federal funding of abortion.